Since its launch in 2017, Harness, the software delivery platform founded by AppDynamics co-founder and CEO Jyoti Bansal, has expanded from continuous code deployment to cover continuous integration, feature flagging, cloud cost management, security test orchestration, chaos engineering and more . But even though it focused heavily on GitOps, it never offered its own Git repositories. That changes today with the launch of the Gitness open-source Git repository and the Harness Code Repository, the hosted and managed version of Gitness.
“There hasn’t been a new Git repo launched in almost a decade,” Bansal told me. “Now you have GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket from Atlassian, but that’s really it. […] If you look at any of the git repositories, whether it’s GitLab or GitHub or Bitbucket, they don’t have the real source ethers around them anymore. We believe Git started as open source, so let’s bring the true open source ethos back to Git repositories.”
![](https://techcrunch.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Gitness-RepositoryFilesView.png)
Image credits: Armor
Bansal also argued that current Git repository services have become too complicated and bloated. Gitness, he noted, can run on the smallest virtual machine (or a developer’s laptop) and be installed in a few minutes. The system also integrates seamlessly with Harness’ CI/CD system and other tools.
He noted that since the company is only now building this service, Harness was able to build in some AI features from the start. Currently, this includes improved search functions and AI-based tools for code reviews and other core functions of the platform.
Harness started working on this project a few years ago, Bansal told me, and most of the company’s 350 in-house developers have already moved to the Harness Code Repository. The company already offers the tools to make it easy for any company to move to Gitness or the Code Repository, and for most developers there won’t be much of a change since they’re likely using Git from the command line anyway. For those times when developers want to use the GUI, Harness has decided to build it in a way that feels familiar (think GitHub-like).
![](https://techcrunch.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/GitnessAISemanticSearch.png)
Image credits: Armor
“Someone coming from GitHub to Gitness, the cognitive load of the transition is going to be extremely, extremely low,” Bansal said. “In probably 5 to 10 minutes, people will be able to find their way.”
While Gitness offers many of the core features, not surprisingly, the Harness Code Repository adds features such as advanced management, policy enforcement, and additional integrations with the rest of the Harness Platform. Bansal also noted that the hosted version will make it much easier for companies to scale to thousands of developers.
![](https://techcrunch.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Gitness-PipelineExecution.png)
Image credits: Armor
In addition to Gitness, Harness is also launching a few additional modules for its overall platform. There’s an internal developer platform, based on Spotidy’s Backstage open source framework for building developer portals, and a supply chain assurance module. Both fill existing gaps without the Harness platform.
Also new is the Harness Infrastructure as Code Management (IaCM) service. With more and more companies defining their infrastructure as code – and especially using Git to manage that code – the Harness team decided it was time to build a dedicated service for this. The IaCM module extends the standard GitOps-based way of managing this code by adding features such as drift detection to see, for example, if a company’s infrastructure is starting to deviate from what was originally defined. The service also maintains security and compliance standards.
“There’s actually no orchestration layer on top of the infrastructure as code and that’s the big gap that we’ve been hearing about from a lot of our customers,” Bansal said.